Talk:The Living Fossil
This is a factual story rather than fictional, so I'm not sure how to summarize this text according to a fictional story outline. Should a new template be created? Or should the text either be converted to fit the story outline/template or moved to subject articles, as done with fact sheets? Here's the text--which should be removed upon making a decision due to copyright concerns--to help reach a conclusion: :"On a morning in December, 1938, a South African fisherman put his catch on display in the market. Prominent in his haul was a weird specimen. Its head and body seemed covered with armor plates. Its fins appeared to the stunted legs. :The strange fish aroused considerable attention. It was presented to the local museum. The curator, unable to identify the grotesque specimen, decided to contact Prof. J.L.B. Smith of Rhodes University, an expert ichthyologist. :But the fish itself was poorly preserved and by the time Smith arrived to examine it, there was little left but a skeleton and the huge armor-plate scales. But when Prof. Smith examined the remains he couldn't believe his eyes. The strange fish was coelacanth. It belonged to a species which scientists believed had vanished from the earth 75 million years ago! As a matter of fact, the last coelacanth skeleton had been found in England back in 1839 in a stratum of clay. That specimen had lived about 250 million years ago! :Prof. Smith startled the scientific world with news of his discovery. The coelacanth provided a missing chapter in the history of evolution. But more specimens of the rare fish were needed for study. The Professor flooded the parts of East Africa with leaflets describing the coelacanth. A reward of 100 pounds sterling was offered to the first fisherman who would deliver an intact specimen. :But the sea would not give up its mysteries so easily. Not until 1952, fourteen years later, was another coelacanth brought in. Unfortunately, this one too was partly decayed by the time the Professor could examine it. :Meanwhile French scientists became interested in the problem too. Doctors and local authorities in the French island posessions east of Africa were asked to keep an eye open for any coelacanth that might be brought in. Supplies of formaldehyde were distributed for preserving any fish which might be caught. :Then in 1953, a native disherman of Anhouan Island brought one in! The creature was over four feet long and weighed eighty-six pounds. Hastily preserved in formaldehyde, it becane the first undamaged specimen of its kind, a weird survivor of the distant and primitive past. :What is the importance of the coelacanth? Many scientists believe that this fish, or its close relatives, was the first animal to leave the primeval sea and live on land. It is thought that they used their used their stunted fins to raise themselves out of the shallow waters so that their heads could momentarily emerge into the open air, :From such fishes came the class of amphibian, and these in turn eventually became the ancestors in the mammal family. :And so, ultimately, the coelacanth became the ancestor of Man himself...Yes, this strange fish survived for untold eons, and lived to see its descendents conquer the earth."